What was the number one predictor of your success in school?

Hardwork and genuine interest in whatever you are doing = #1 predictors.

Chant – If you are going to do something, do it right.

I had several professors in college who took a general interest in me and that made all of the difference. They realized my potential and it made me strive to meet the expectations they had for me.

Isn’t the party line that the number one predictor of school success is parental involvement? In my case that would be the truth, my parent was decidedly uninvolved and I was a decidedly poor student.

According to a recent article it is about eating breakfast. In my case, nobody ever told me failure was an option.

I went through years of school thinking that everyone loved learning, studying, homework, acing exams and doing well in square-dancing. It was a shock when I learned otherwise.

I was organized. I knew what needed to be done when and I did it. Mostly because I feared getting bad grades, I took it personally. My parents instilled in me the idea that you always do your best regardless and your best should always be excellent. I was able to study well and I have a really good memory, so it doesn’t take me long to memorize things. And I liked learning.

good reading and note taking skills

I loved school, right up until about 8th grade. After that I became bored and unmotivated by the whole thing. I had a knack for it, and it wasn’t hard at all to be a straight A student through the end of 7th grade. My mother was completely hands-off. We were poor. I had no set bedtime, and no organizational skills whatsoever. I fit none of the usual stereotypes of a successful student. Most people in my family weren’t particularly intelligent, but my mother and her mother were. I think it was just genetic.

Luck I guess. I did pretty well at school, but this was a combination of either listening to the teacher in class (and not having to read the stuff at home) or simply being liked by teachers who somehow assumed that, if I got a question right, I was a genius, and if I got it wrong, it was the wrong question.

I remember a Greek history test where we were supposed to write the major cities during a particular period, and I just wrote names of cities I assumed would be big at the time. The teacher gave me full points for it, saying that it was her fault that she had not defined she meant “major Greek cities” and not worlwide. I had simply not studied. There’s many stories like that.

I think having older siblings played a good part. They were 6, 8 and 10 years older than me. Threw a lot of things at me at an early age. Had Poe, Dickens, Fitzgerald read to me as bedtime stories. A little on the somber side, but definitely instilled a love for literature at an early age.

Also having a lot of siblings gave me more people to pester with my endless questions. This merely served to indulge my natural curiosity.

Also, my siblings are quite different. Growing up with so many disparate influences, it only seems natural to be interested in most everything. My college career took a winding path. And where I’d like to end up (architecture) draws from many different disciplines.

Hmmm…I think I might have answered the wrong question.

Might have answered this:
What was the number one predictor of how your relationship to learning would turn out?

To answer your question. Probably my early enthusiasm to go to school. I loved it. So much so that my dad would threaten that I couldn’t go to school as a punishment! Can you believe that? A parent punishing a child by keeping them home from school? How incredibly bizarre. But it worked! Go figure.

currently, i look forward to 7th hour. though my grades are not up to par right now, having a class that i really really love and look forward to and strive to do well in motivates me in general. there have been days that i was tempted to try to get out of going to school because just the thought of another day made me want to like, cry. but knowing i have that last class is really great. i leave in a good mood and usually feeling a lot better about everything in general.

There is not necessarily a corelation between learning and grades.-